electronics kit

[Dale Botkin], [N0XAS], is a competent designer for the amateur radio crowd and has a part-time business on the side selling a few kits. As anyone who owns a business, works in retail, or simply interacts with the general population will know, eventually you’ll have to deal with one of those customers. [Dale]’s latest horror story (here’s the coral cache but that doesn’t seem to be working either) comes from someone who bought a little repeater controller. You’re looking at this customer’s handiwork above. It gets worse.

After this customer completely botched an assembly job, he contacted [Dale] for some technical assistance. [Dale] graciously accepted a return and received the above mess of solder, wires, and parts. Then an email disputing the Paypal charge arrived. The customer wanted a refund for the original kit and the cost of shipping it back.

Oh, but it gets better. After posting this story, [Dale] received yet another email from an FBI agent demanding that his original post be taken down. The email from the FBI came from a Czech domain, so of course this is a totally legit demand.

So there’s your, “worst customer ever” story from the world of kit electronics. The assembly is impressively bad, even for something that was ‘professionally installed by an electrician’, but mail fraud and impersonating federal officials just takes this over the top.

Quick note: any doxxing in the comments will be deleted, so just don’t do it.